the Nice Anthony Passeron is described by many as one of the revelations of the literary season, with his first novel sleeping children appeared in Globe publishing. Professor in Nice, musician and now a writer, he tells the story of his heroin addict uncle killed by AIDS. In the early 80s, in the hinterland of Nice. Where the gossip was going well. Where the virus was wreaking havoc. Where we didn’t know much.
Drug addiction and AIDS in the hinterland of Nice
Forty years have passed since the death of his uncle Désiré, a drug addict and HIV-positive. Séropo because he exchanged syringes with stoned partners. Anthony Passeron decided to tell. To question his family history. To write the story of his grandparents who became butchers during the postwar boom, who saw their son touch drugs, use them and being infected with HIV at a time when nothing was known (or little) on the virus.
In the hinterland of Nice, where the gossip was going well, where the patient was considered an outcast.
A mixture of sociological investigation and family story. Which touches, moves, also makes you think.
The people of the Côte d’Azur will recognize themselves in my book
The story is intimate, the theme universal. For all the Azurians who lived the end of the 70s here.
Similarities to today’s epidemics
Yes, we find similarities to outbreaks in recent years !
“I didn’t think that 40 years later, after the story of AIDS in France, we could still consider that there was sick and dead who were more guilty than others. Something that marked me a lot at the time of Covid, it’s this way of consider overweight people as if they were responsible. (…) As if there were sick people who deserved to die more than others. With Monkeypox, I feel like we’re still getting focus on the homosexual community and that no doubt there are still people who will go under the radar, and I’m afraid that we’ll still miss out on a medical issue on the pretext that we stigmatize or that we focus a little too much on a population which is certainly exposed, but which is not the only one”, explains Anthony Passeron to France Bleu Azur.
“My students are promoting the book on Tik Tok”
This first novel is (very) successful. Invitations to Anthony Passeron to express himself in the (very) numerous media as well. “I am lucky to be one of the first-time novelists who have access to a certain visibility, because _it’s very hard in the publishing world to get people talking about your book_. Because they are numerous, especially at the start of the literary season. Of the first 90 novels that came out this year, I’m lucky to get some insight. Necessary with the theme. It is not an easy text to present because the theme is still quite heavy. The Globe Editions (the publisher of Sleeping Children, editor’s note) have the courage to publish it, but in addition, they manage to make it known very well and it’s very lucky“
Dedications on the Côte d’Azur
Anthony Passeron is looking forward to: meet readers, exchange, discuss. He will do it Friday, September 23, 2022 at the Autour d’un livre bookstore in Cannes. Signing session at 6:30 p.m. free admission followed by a dinner-conference by reservation (on 04 93 68 01 99). The writer will also be present October 8 and 9 at the Mouans Sartoux Book Festival. And at Fnac Forum in Nice on October 22.